Chamber and committees

We continue to support the revitalisation of town centres through the Town Centre First Principle and delivery of the Town Centre Action Plan. National Planning Framework 4 further embeds this approach by recognising town centres as national assets, and promotes the reuse of empty buildings and town centre living to boost local economic activity.

We also support town centre regeneration through our regeneration capital investment programmes, as well as our support for Scotland’s Towns Partnership, Business Improvement Districts and the Scotland Loves Local programme.

Since 2014 Inverclyde Council has received over £13m regeneration capital investment from the Scottish Government, which has supported the transformation of empty properties into commercial, residential and enterprising activity. Examples include enhancement work in Port Glasgow’s Lower Town Quarter and improvements to Customhouse Square in Greenock.

We are also supporting local authorities to address vacant retail spaces in our high streets and town centres through a range of measures, using the levers available to us. This includes our competitive non-domestic rates regime, and supporting the re-use or repurposing of vacant units through the Fresh Start Relief and Business Growth Accelerator Relief.

This Scottish Government does not hold this information. The member may wish to contact the Health Board directly who may be able to help.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes statistics on the number of waits for patients on waiting lists for planned care in the Stage of Treatment (SoT) Waiting Times publication. Patients may appear more than once if they are waiting for multiple appointments or admissions, so the statistics shown do not reflect the actual number of individuals involved. Further information about SoT Waiting Times can be found on the PHS website.

Table 1 presents the number of ongoing waits at 31 October 2025. The figures reflect waits for residents within the Inverclyde council area awaiting a new outpatient appointment or an inpatient/day case admission in dentistry-related specialties at any hospital in Scotland.

More detailed information on the treatment or procedure(s) that is planned or undertaken for a patient will be held locally by NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde or the health board of treatment responsible for the patient’s wait.

Table 1: Number of ongoing waits for a new outpatient appointment or inpatient or day case admission at 31 October 2025, Inverclyde council area

The Scottish Government does not hold information for what the “average ambulance response time is in Inverclyde”.

However, the median response time in Greater Glasgow and Clyde to Purple coded incidents was 07:48 minutes (08:06 nationally) and Red coded incidents was 09:49 minutes (09:57 nationally).

The 2025-26 Budget has allocated nearly £2.2 billion for social care and integration, representing an increase of over £1.2 billion since 2021-22. This goes almost £350 million beyond the Scottish Government’s original commitment to increase social care funding by 25% (£840 million) over the lifetime of the Parliament.

We have a clear plan to reduce delayed discharge and are investing more than £220 million to tackle waiting list backlogs, improve capacity and remove blockages that are keeping some patients in hospital longer than they need to be. This includes an initial allocation of over £20m to support Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS’s whole system plan to improve patient flow.

Alongside the record investment committed, we are also working with local system leaders to support their health and social care improvement reforms – rebalancing care towards community, rehabilitation and prevention based services like Hospital at Home that help improve patient outcomes and prevent further hospital care.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on how long patients wait for a GP appointment.

Most general practices in Scotland are run by independent contractors who are responsible for their own appointment arrangements.

This information is not held centrally. Statistics on the number of people waiting for CAMHS and Psychological Therapies are available from Public Health Scotland as they have associated Standards that 90% of patients should start treatment within 18 weeks. These are not published at HSCP level but data at Health Board level are published. These can be found at the following links:

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) waiting times - Quarter ending September 2025 - Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) waiting times - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

Psychological therapies waiting times - Quarter ending September 2025 - Psychological therapies waiting times - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to enabling individuals/workers at all stages of their careers to retrain and enhance their capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI) and information technology. This commitment is delivered through a comprehensive suite of interventions, including funding administered by Skills Development Scotland, strategic investment in colleges and universities, the expansion of digital apprenticeships, and targeted support for data and AI skills development through initiatives such as The Data Lab.

As set out in the Programme for Government 2025-26, the Scottish Government will establish AI Scotland — a national transformation programme underpinned by collaboration across businesses, academia, government, and public bodies. A central component of this programme is the development of a national AI adoption framework for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This will focus on building delivery capacity, assessing and addressing AI-related skills requirements, and strengthening Scotland’s AI talent pipeline to facilitate workforce reskilling and adaptation as AI technologies reshape employment and the wider economy.

The Scottish Government publishes statistics on the numbers of homes that have been empty for 6 month or more annually. The local authority breakdown is available from the Scottish Government website at: Housing statistics: Second homes and empty properties - gov.scot.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-41902 on 1 December 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.